The First Amendment: Cases and Theory, Fifth Edition
Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook on Casebook Connect, including academic lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities. Access also includes an outline tool and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your law school classes. The First Amendment: Cases and Theory, Fifth Edition is a comprehensive and up-to-date First Amendment casebook that covers freedom of speech, freedom of association, and religious liberties, using the case method to elucidate theory and doctrine. In an area rife with multi-factor tests, mastery of First Amendment theory and doctrine requires more than rote memorization of three- and four-part tests; it requires a firm foundation in the underlying theories and purposes that animate the Supreme Court’s decisions involving expressive freedoms and religious liberties. No less important, the casebook also includes Problems at the end of each major section. The Problems provide an easy and convenient means to assess students’ mastery of the relevant precedents and doctrines. The editors also have included carefully targeted coverage of how other constitutional democracies, such as Canada and Germany, have reached very different conclusions regarding the scope and meaning of expressive freedom. All major contemporary free expression and religious liberty controversies receive coverage, with helpful Notes to answer students' questions and deepen their understanding of the subject areas. The First Amendment: Cases and Theory is a highly teachable casebook suitable for a standard three-hour survey of the First Amendment, but also would work quite well for more focused survey courses on the Speech, Press, Assembly, or Religion Clauses. New to the 5th Edition: ● Revised chapters on basic free speech doctrines including excluded categories of speech, content neutrality, symbolic conduct, and freedom of association. ● Addition of recent major Supreme Court decisions on free expression, free exercise of religion, and the Establishment Clause. ● Addition of a new chapter on social media and other new communications technologies. ● Addition of a new chapter on campaign speech and spending. Professors and students will benefit from: ● Completely revised and updated coverage to 2026 – including coverage of the Supreme Court’s major First Amendment decisions since publication of the Fourth Edition. ● Comprehensive coverage of contemporary major free speech and religious freedom controversies that are likely to generate future landmark Supreme Court precedents in the years to come.● The casebook can be taught cover-to-cover in a standard three-hour survey course format without requiring the instructor to make selective coverage decisions. ● The participation of Charlotte Garden, a noted expert on freedom of expression, as a new casebook co-author. ● Cutting edge free speech controversies such as sexting, nonconsensual pornography, racist trademarks, government speech, and student speech rights in the age of the internet. ● Doctrinal developments placed into a coherent historical narrative that shows the evolving nature of First Amendment doctrine. ● Targeted coverage of free speech rules in foreign jurisdictions that have considered, but rejected, the U.S. approach in important areas such as libel, hate speech, national security, and sexually-explicit speech. ● Re-organized and updated coverage of foundational free speech and association doctrines, including new chapters on excluded categories of speech, content neutrality, symbolic conduct, the right not to be compelled to speak, the right of association and non-association, and campaign speech and spending. ● Completely re-organized and updated coverage of the Religion Clauses illustrating the expanding scope of the Free Exercise Clause and the diminishing reach of the Establishment Clause". ● Up-to-date coverage of the growing conflicts over religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws for individuals, churches, and businesses. ● Dedicated coverage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and state RFRAs. ● Explanation of how Establishment Clause doctrine has evolved to abandon the "Lemon" and "endorsement" test in favor of "coercion" and a "history and tradition" test. Separation of church and state cases in multiple areas from prayers and creationism in public schools to government sponsored Latin crosses and legislative prayers to government funding of religious schools.